After reading to your child daily the best advice is to surround your child with a print rich environment. Point out the letters all around you, read recipes, read food boxes, read the letters you see around you and show them to your child and play with letters. There is no need for flash cards when you are learning all the time. These alphabet peg dolls were made because my daughter loves babies so I made her some babies with letters to play with. This is the 4th part in our series Alphabet For Starters – easy and fun ways to introduce letters to your little learner.
- Gather your materials. I am using left over Martha Stewart Craft Paint from my Mother’s Day Bag I made. However you can use any paint made for wood. Read the instructions to see if it requires a sealant etc… ours didn’t which is good because I didn’t have any. Also make sure it’s non toxic because even though I am not suggesting these dolls go in any mouths , you still want to be as safe as possible. I also used painter’s tape, wood peg clothes pins, and a few brushes.
- Start by taping off a section of the doll. This will be where you paint the letter later.
- Next start painting. I painted in batches. You can paint however you want but I started with the mouths.
- Then I added hair, and a body color. I am clearly not an artist but my daughter doesn’t care at all.
- When dry peel off the tape.
- Paint the letters on and let dry.
- Play !
Some ways we have played with these dolls :
- Put them in a bag and discover them one at a time.
- Play with them in the doll house.
- Hide them in the family room and go on a hunt to find them.
- Count them.
- Make them kiss . My daughter grabs them , makes them kiss then I ask which two are kissing and she tells me. Not a bad game !
Alphabet Board Books
ABC, Baby Me!
Flora McDonnell’s ABC
Winnie-The-Pooh’s ABC Book
What a wonderful idea! I am pinning this to my preschool board to make for my daughter this summer. Thanks!
What a cute and easy craft for letter recognition! Sharing on my facebook page! Love it!
Love these Allie – what a great idea.
These are just beautiful and a very creative way to learn the ABCs.
Cute! Where did you get those wooden clothespins with the blunt ends?
Micheal’s
Wal-mart has them too! 🙂 Love this idea! Plan on making these for my classroom and my grand daughter for Christmas! Thanks for the wonderful idea!
You are welcome!
I love this idea, but I’m having trouble finding the clothes pins like the ones shown here. Where did you find these? I can’t find any that are flat on the bottom.
Thanks!
Got them at Micheal’s – do you have one close by?
This is another fantastic creative post from you. I love all of your ideas. Thank you for your creativity and your passion to share. I am truly a grateful new mom!
Thanks Natasha !
I totally agree that filling your home with print-rich materials is key to encouraging literacy. I still credit our alphabet magnetic letters on the fridge for really encouraging my toddler to learn his alphabet. He started off by identifying the sounds each letter makes, until he was able to say the letters themselves. We also have an alphabet rug, alphabet magnetic links, alphabet blocks…
He is now into identifying certain words like “stop” that we see on stop signs, and it’s amazing to see him continue to “get it” when it comes to literacy.
je viens de découvrir votre blog , elle est superbe !!! bravo!!
vos idées sont épatantes!! vous m’avez découvert de vos superbes activités merci a vous!!
Merci Ines!
Je ne suis pas un très bon écrivain en français mais je peux le lire et comprendre. J’espère que vous continuer à trouver mes idées utiles. Merci!!
I love these! Think I’ll make a set for my daughter’s third birthday 🙂
I love these as much as the handwriting stencil! Such a perfect alphabet manipulative for little ones. This is great project for my oldest to make for her little sister. I am definitely seeing a trip to the craft store in my future this weekend. 🙂
Love those peg dolls!
CUTENESS!!!
I love the idea and it look so cute! This is a great way to get your kids attention to read the alphabet. That is why i’m so excited to try this for my son! Thanks for sharing this to us.
We made these over the weekend and they are a HIT!! We incorporated the add’l letters in the Spanish alphabet. When I posted the pics to my page, I added the link back to here. This is such a great idea-THANK YOU!
I don’t know how to post pics directly on to here but I would love to share 🙂 so I am going to try and add the link to my photo album under website…
These are great! My daughter would love them! Now… can you make an extra set or two and post them on etsy for me? 🙂 I’ll buy!!!
That’s not a bad idea – hmm if only I had a few extra hours or a house elf ;P
I will use this in my preschool class and share with the other teachers. Thanks for the idea
Great idea! Thanks for sharing…
I love this idea!! I might even have clothes pins stashed somewhere in my craft bins. Score! 🙂 Thanks for sharing.